The present invention relates to the use of proteins extractable from animal organs, particularly a from livers of mammals, for the preparation of medicaments active against autoimmune diseases, in particular activity against atherosclerosis, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes.
The administration of complete Freund""s adjuvant has proved to be capable of inducing an experimental arthritis very similar to rheumatoid arthritis in rats. On the other hand, the administration of adjuvant to rabbits induces no arthritic pathology, but atherosclerosis. The studies carried out have evidenced that, in both lesions, immunoreactivity to an endogenous factor, which has been identified as the Heat Shock Protein 60 (HSP60), is present. Subsequent searches have confirmed these observations, proving that the administration of complete Preund""s adjuvant can be replaced by the administration of HSP60, resulting in the same pathologies. Afterwards, pre-treatment of rat with adjuvant, HSP60 or fragments thereof has proved to prevent the onset of arthritis, with a still obscure mechanism, whereas the administration subsequent to the adjuvant worsens the progress of the disease.
More recently, pre-treatment with adjuvant has been found to also prevent other experimental pathologies which can be defined, generally speaking, as autoimmune disease, such as diabetes or experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE). Finally, HSP60 has been found to have structural analogies to a high number of autoantigens, therefore it is assumed to be related to pathologies more widely than what up to now observed.
WO 92/10197 disclosed protein fractions extractable with perchloric acid from organs of mammals, and their use as anticancer agents. Within these fractions, three main components could be identified, having molecular weights 50, 14 and 10 KDa on gel electrophoresis. The purified extract containing these three components will be referred to as UK 101 in the following. The sequence of the 14 KDa protein component, which is the main, if not the only, responsible for the described activities, is reported in the Table hereinbelow and in WO 96/02567, and it has turned out to be related to that described by other authors (Levy-Favatier, Eur. Biochem. 1903, 212 (3) 665-73) which have assumed that the novel identified sequences belong to the family of the proteins known as chaperoning, to which the HSPs themselves belong.
The proteins described in WO 92/10197 and those of WO 96/02567 (in the following referred to as UK 114) show anyhow properties never observed for chaperonins or analogous proteins. More specifically, it has been found that said proteins can be used in the prevention and in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, in particular atherosclerotic conditions, such as the atherosclerosis induced by organ transplants, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
The invention relates preferably to the use of the purified proteins UK 101 and UK 114 for the preparation of medicaments for the prevention and the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as atherosclerosis following organ transplants, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes.